Hell and High Water: PracticeRelevant Adaptation Science
CLIMATE CHANGE
R. H. Moss, * † G. A. Meehl, M. C. Lemos, J. B.
Smith, J. R. Arnold, J. C. Arnott, D. Behar, G. P.
Brasseur, S. B. Broomell, A. J. Busalacchi, S.
Dessai, K. L. Ebi, J. A. Edmonds, J. Furlow, L.
Goddard, H. C. Hartmann, J. W. Hurrell, J. W.
Katzenberger, D. M. Liverman, P. W. Mote, S. C.
Moser, A. Kumar, R. S. Pulwarty, E. A. Seyller, B.
L. Turner II, W. M. Washington, T. J. Wilbanks
Adaptation requires science that analyses
decisions, identifies vulnerabilities, improves
foresight, and develops options.
*Full affiliations for all authors are provided in the
supplementary materials. †Corresponding author. E-mail:
rhm@pnnl.gov
Informing the extensive preparations needed to
manage climate risks, avoid damages, and
realize emerging opportunities is a grand
challenge for climate change science. U.S.
President Obama underscored the need for this
research when he made climate preparedness a
pillar of his climate policy. Adaptation improves
preparedness and is one of two broad and
increasingly important strategies (along with
mitigation) for climate risk management.
Adaptation is required in virtually all sectors of
the economy and regions of the globe, for both
built and natural systems (1).
However, without the appropriate science
delivered in a decision-relevant context, it will
become increasingly difficult—if not impossible—
to prepare adequately (2). We suggest a number
of measures to hasten the development of
science to correct mal-adaptations to current
climate variability and support society’s
increasing need to adapt to a changing climate,
drawing on lessons from experience, insights
from related endeavours such as sustainability
science (3), and input from scientific and
stakeholder communities.
Adaptation Planning, Information Gaps, and the
Need for Adaptation Science
Initial adaptation planning is occurring in some
sectors, such as water resource management,
forestry, insurance, and coastal zone
management. A limited but growing number of
states and cities are developing adaptation
plans. U.S. federal agencies have implemented
sustainability plans that include mitigation and
adaptation (4).
There are serious science gaps, however (5, 6).
In many communities, decision-makers lack
climate information or the means to apply it. In
others, knowledge of current or potential future
impacts exists, but not in a form or context that
decision-makers can assimilate or act on in
advance. In still others, engineering innovations
are needed, as well as social science knowledge,
to guide technology deployment and adjustments
to management, investments, and public policy.
A key characteristic of emerging adaptation
science is that it is both basic—in that it
contributes to understanding fundamental
physical, environmental, and socioeconomic
research questions—and applied, because it is
problem focused. Scientists and practitioners
“coproduce” relevant research by jointly defining
questions and maintaining frequent interactions
(7). Coproduction is challenging to implement
and sustain because participants often have
different roles, vocabularies, interests, methods,
and incentives. The effectiveness of
communications and deliberative processes
among scientists and practitioners requires
empirical evaluation (8). To support the wide
range of necessary adjustments, we outline a
comprehensive, integrated approach to research
in social, physical, environmental, engineering,
and other sciences. We describe adaptation
science research needed to understand decision
processes and information requirements, identify
vulnerabilities, improve foresight about climate
risks and other stressors, and understand
barriers and options for adaptation.
Understand Decision Processes and Knowledge
Requirements
Adaptation science research must clarify what
types of scientific information are required for
improved decision-making. Decision-makers are
concerned with cost, feasibility, social
acceptance, tradition, and other factors. To close
a “usability gap,” scientific information must fit
into existing contexts (9). Organizational,
cognitive, political, ethnographic, and decision
sciences research is needed to clarify the
problem, the values of participants, and the
context in which the information will be applied.
Understanding perception and apprehension of
climate change risks is also a priority.
Identify Vulnerabilities
Research to characterize vulnerability and
adaptive capacity focuses on pinpointing
infrastructure, economic sectors, geo-graphic
areas, population groups, and ecosystems at
greatest risk of harm (10). Two challenges are to:
Improve data, methods, and scenarios for
research on vulnerability and resilience of human
and natural systems. A geo-referenced data
system for factors such as population, economic
status, preparedness, natural capital, and
location of sensitive infrastructure needs to be
established and maintained to identify vulnerable
human communities and environments. Effective
response will be aided by understanding the
extent to which vulnerability arises from poverty,
Under-investment, environmental factors, and
their interactions with climate variability and
change.
Identify climate thresholds in vulnerable systems.
Knowledge of climate and related thresholds,
points at which fundamental transformations
occur in natural or human systems as climate
changes, will improve resource management and
inform debates about future atmospheric
greenhouse gas stabilization.
Coupled with time-dependent climate scenarios,
improved knowledge of climate thresholds may
help in estimating when effects could occur and
thus facilitate setting adaptation priorities.
Improve Foresight about Climate Hazards and
Other Stressors
Physical and biological scientists must
study climate processes and develop models to
deliver insights about climate features, including
temperature and precipitation extremes, and
related processes such as evolution of
ecosystems, sea level rise, and other first-order
effects. Social sciences can characterize human
contributions to climate change through
emissions and land use and inform mechanisms
for improving interactions between climate
scientists and potential users (11).
Research challenges include:
Understand recent and potential future changes
in extreme climate events. Extremes occur on
many spatial and time scales. They include heat
waves, droughts, floods, storms, and other
events that have major effects on human and
natural systems. There is evidence that many of
these extremes are intensifying (1, 12). A
concerted focus on detecting changes in
extremes and improving predictive products can
provide important inputs to adaptation planning
and preparedness.
Improve integration of weather and climate
information. Common elements of initializing
predictions with observations and providing
probabilistic weather and climate information
across time scales can constitute a unified
approach for weather forecasts and climate
predictions (13, 14). Decadal climate predictions
with next-generation, high-resolution global
climate models (e.g.15) have the potential to
produce probabilistic near-term climate
information over the next decade and improve
insight into future conditions to which human
societies will have to adapt (16). Research is
needed to formulate methods for presenting
global climate model information in probabilistic
form and applying that information to risk
assessment and management (17).
Tailor climate information to facilitate its
application in decision-making. Sustained
interactions among researchers and decisionmakers are needed not only to understand how
climate affects assets or resources but also to
identify how climate information can be used in
decisions (18). In addition to global climate
models, other tools can produce relevant
information, such as less computationally
intensive intermediate-complexity models [e.g.,
to assess uncertainty (19)], qualitative scenario
planning approaches (20), and decision-analytic
approaches to use climate model information in
ways that supplement conventional scenario-led
studies (e.g.17). Climate and decision scientists
can tailor information for application through
downscaling of climate model data (e.g.21) or
running fully dynamical nested numerical models
at regional or finer grid spacings [e.g., the North
American Regional Climate Change Assessment
Program (22)].
Establish climate information services at the
national and international level to translate and
communicate adaptation science to public and
private sector decision makers. The Global
Framework for Climate Services (23) provides a
foundation for climate services being developed
in many countries. Development of climate
services should engage decision makers,
researchers, and others to ensure that products
are relevant, uncertainties are explicit, and a
portfolio of products that combine monitoring and
projections are useable to decision-makers.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has
emphasized the need for climate services (24),
and the U.S. Global Change Research Program
(USGCRP) has made climate adaptation science
that would use climate information a focus of its
10-year plan (25). Current funding levels are
inadequate and declining, and incentives and
means to engage with stakeholders are lacking,
inhibiting service development and delivery (5,
26).
Identify Barriers, Broaden the Range of
Adaptation Options, and Promote Learning
Options need to be studied to guide adjustments
in technology, management practices, public
policy, standards, institutions, governance, and
incentives to facilitate adaptation.
Four priorities are to:
Identify, explain, and explore opportunities to
overcome barriers to adaptation.
Existing laws, regulations, and other practices
can limit adaptation. These include legal and
financial mechanisms, from local to international
jurisdictions. Research is needed to identify
these barriers and develop solutions to minimize
or surmount them.
Develop technologies and performance
standards. A changed climate system with
conditions never before experienced by human
societies may alter effectiveness of historically
successful adaptation approaches and limit types
of adaptation (27). Adaptation options are
needed that are robust to different climate and
socioeconomic development pathways, and are
thus effective in both the short-term and the longterm (e.g., improved water distribution or
desalination systems, and advances in electricity
generation, transmission, and distribution).
Organizations and processes for establishing
manufacturing, building, and other standards
(e.g., the International Organization for
Standardization) should contribute to the
development of adaptation options.
Develop indicators and monitoring and
evaluation systems. Monitoring and evaluation
will help track progress in enhancing resilience,
prioritizing adaptation funding, and evaluating
effectiveness of adaptation options. For
adaptation options related to infrastructure and
some natural resources, relevant indicators are
relatively easy to quantify.
For measures focused on governance or
livelihoods, indirect proxy variables must be
defined. Case studies dominate adaptation
evaluations, with little comparative research on
implementation (28).
Learn from experience. A number of knowledge
platforms are beginning to catalogue and
evaluate experiences to promote information
exchange and learning. Learning and
disseminating of lessons needs to be accelerated
to improve decision-making. Enabling private
companies to share experiences without
damaging commercial interests is a particular
challenge.
Measures to Establish Adaptation Science
First steps in establishing institutions to conduct
and support adaptation science are taking place.
In the United States, “mission” agencies
including the Environmental Protection Agency,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and the Department of
the Interior have supported the use of scientific
information in adaptation. The Regional
Integrated Sciences and Assessments Program,
Climate Science Centres, and other efforts aim at
developing a collaborative framework between
research and practice (29). The European Union
has provided research funding and launched an
information portal (www.eea.europa.eu/
themes/climate/european-climate-adaptationplatform-climate-adapt). Germany, the United
Kingdom, and other countries are moving
forward to establish services (e.g., www.climateservice-center.de). Australia has made
adaptation a priority
(www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Adapting.aspx)
Advances in adaptation science will not happen
without two transformational changes: (i) an
institutional structure to catalyse, coordinate,
evaluate, and encourage the use of advances in
adaptation science; and (ii) an increase in
funding. National Research Council reports
(e.g.6) and recommendations of a U.S. federal
interagency committee (30) provide detailed
recommendations that would help advance
climate adaptation science.
One U.S. approach could be a national institute
on climate preparedness composed of research
and applications centres for adaptation in priority
sectors or challenges. The institute would be
geographically distributed and function in some
ways similar to the National Institutes of Health.
It would build on the current USGCRP, agency
sectoral or regional research centres, and
regional nodes for the National Climate
Assessment’s sustained assessment process.
Providing sufficient resources for centralized
functions would facilitate research on coupled
systems and offer an opportunity to better
connect adaptation science to interagency
programs. More broadly, sustained support for
problem-oriented fundamental research on
adaptation needs to be increased at research
agencies. A particular challenge is to develop
effective approaches to learn from adaptation
practice as well as published research. Progress
toward achieving the goal of adapting to
changing climate will require demonstrating
tangible benefits for society by connecting
research and applications.
Scientists and practitioners are collaborating on
research and applications to support climate change
preparedness and address other non-climate issues.
Case examples document research and actions, such as
plans and projects, but do not yet provide evidence of
improved outcomes. Improved methods and data are
needed for evaluating results (29).
•Well before Hurricane Sandy, New York City
established a task force of city officials, utilities,
commercial firms, and researchers to support
formulation of adaptation options for vital
infrastructure.
•Major urban water utilities, university-based research
centres, and private sector firms in the United States are
collaborating to pilot applications of climate science and
water utility modelling applications to quantify impacts
of climate change on their water systems and evaluate
adaptation strategies.
•Researchers in Australia developed a plant functional
trait database and modelled habitat suitability under
climate scenarios for naturalized and invasive plants to
enable land managers to make better-informed
decisions about land management at a national and
regional level.
•Researchers and local practitioners in the Vietnamese
city of Hue and the Bangladeshi city of Satkhira
collaborated to assess climate-related risks, identify
adaptation strategies, and strengthen local capacity to
manage the interaction of rapid development and
climate impacts.
•Researchers worked with small-scale farmers and
agricultural extension officials in Sub-Saharan Africa to
provide a bridge between scientific and indigenous
knowledge of drought onset and coping strategies to
improve delivery of drought prediction information for
vulnerable, rain-fed farming operations.
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Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the Aspen
Global Change Institute (AGCI) and its director, John
Katzenberger, for hosting a workshop that laid the
foundations for this paper, along with the attendees
who contributed to discussions. A portion of this
research was supported by the
Office of Science, Biological and Environmental
Research, U.S. Department of Energy. Funding for the
AGCI workshop was provided by NASA. The views
expressed in this article are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect the positions of their institutions.